Break
by Elihu
Summary: AU :: We are the Titans. Kneel before us and tremble.
1. BREAK

"Open."

The steel door slid open and two figures passed through.

"Close."

It closed behind them noisily.

The older of the two adjusted his uniform and started walking.

He stopped abruptly. Reaching back, he grabbed the chain between the hands of the younger and yanked him forward. His obviously unwilling companion struggled briefly against the chains, but gave in to the demands shortly after. The companion was merely a boy, no older than teenager, small but lithe.

His stare never left the ground.

He marched forward against the chains on his legs and bored holes in the ground with the fierce gaze from behind his small, black-framed eyemask.

"Open."

They arrived at another door and it opened like the previous one.

"Close."

It slammed shut even more violently than before.

Dim overhead lights lit up a stretching hallway before them. Evenly spaced out cells adorned the left and right walls of the hallway on two stories.

Eager eyes and grinning mouths filled the gaps in the shadows of the cells.

Murmurs and words oozed from the walls as the two figures walked ahead. All eyes were fixed on the younger of the two; he walked behind his captor, silently, begrudgingly, but without resistance and ignored the looks coming from the walls.

His steel-rimmed boots scraped the floor on every step he took; his captor hurriedly quickened the tempo of his metal boots.

"Fresh meat!"

Laughter came from everywhere at once.

"FRESH MEAT!"

Loud, obnoxious, crazed laughter bled from the ceiling, and it bled vigorously.

"Hey Cutie," came a coyly seductive shout from a dark cell, "what's your name?"

Eyes on the floor.

"FRESH MEAT!"

One step at a time.

"Watch your back, Meat!"

The man led his captive through the jungle of taunts step-by-step until they finally arrived at a door at the end of the hallway. The older man reached forward and opened the door manually. He pulled it aside and motioned for the prisoner to head in.

But he just stood there, staring at the ground and breathing shallowly.

The man reached back, planted a hand on the boy's back, and thrust him through the doorway.

"FRREEEESSSSHHHH MMEEEEAAAAAT…."

B r e a k

Cigar smoke swirled under a single light bulb.

The air hung limply, saturated with the smell of sweat and tobacco and anguish. The shadows of the smoke clouds dancing under the light were the only the adornment on the walls; they stood firmly, each as gray and bleak and confining as the two next to it. The only things in the entire room were the light bulb, the table, the three people who sat on it, and the cigar attached to the oldest one's hand.

A manila folder sat open on the table. A single sheet of paper and two photos lay clipped to the sides. The Wiry Man who led the boy through the halls looked over them silently.

The oldest man inhaled deeply on his cigar.

Wrinkles on his forehead spoke clearly of his age; his dark and weathered skin told of his years of experience with the worst of cases. A thick mustache sat on his upper lip and matched the gray tone of his hair. His eyes moved slowly, looking over the Boy who sat in front of him.

He let out a thick cloud of smoke.

"Conviction?"

The Wiry Man answered slowly while looking over the folder's contents. "Three accounts of homicide: a woman and her four-year-old child in a park as well as a…"

He looked back to the file.

"As well as a… a… mime."

The Old Man looked at the Boy, who looked up for the first time since entering the prison.

The Boy smiled. "Don't you just hate them?"

The Old Man reached out gingerly, paused slightly, then threw his weight into backslapping the Boy across the face. He recoiled from the force and fell sprawling from the chair.

Behind bewildered eyes, the Boy stared back at the Old Man.

"Did you hear me talk to you?"

The Boy didn't stir.

"So don't talk unless I tell you to."

The Old Man turned back to other and continued talking.

"Trial?"

"Yesterday."

"Jury?"

"Judge."

"Sentence?"

"Two life sentences."

The Old Man looked towards the Boy who hadn't moved form the floor or even let his eyes wander from the Old Man's face. He smiled a wide, toothy smile.

"You're gonna like it here, Boy." He stood from his chair. "You'll be taken to the showers and stripped of your possessions and clothes."

He inhaled on the cigar deeply and spoke as he let the cloud of smoke out slowly.

"There's only one rule: do what we say. There's only one punishment: pain."

He motioned towards the Wiry Man; he stood and walked towards a door next to the one from which they had entered the interrogation room. He twisted the doorknob and opened the door.

"Get up."

The Boy stood as told and walked towards the door. As he arrived, he turned around and looked at the Old Man dead in the eye. "You're gonna to kiss my gun before I kill you."

The Boy turned again and walked through the door.

B r e a k

"These are your new clothes."

A pile of faded orange cloth and an old pair of boots landed at his bare feet. He eyed the pile of clothes that had obviously belonged to several owners before reaching him and looked back up.

The room was relatively plain: the walls were uniformly tiled; a drain lay in the center of the floor; showerheads protruded from all four walls toward the center; and a small door stood in the far corner with a hose connected next to it.

"Hand over the old ones."

The line of armed prison guards helped persuade him to obey.

The Boy unfastened the metal plates on his shoulders and knees and pulled off a metal insigna in the shape of an "S." They fell in a pile next to his boots. The half-orange, half-black uniform came off him next. A small metal bar clanked onto the pile as the remaining clothes gently floated onto the pile.

He stood behind the pile of his former clothes with his hands clenched, clothed in nothing but his black eyemask.

A guard lowered his gun and stepped forward. He bent over, collected the clothes with one hand, and turned to leave with them.

"Wait," the Wiry Man said from behind the line of guards, "we need your mask, too."

The guard turned back around and reached for the Boy's eyemask; his hand stopped mere inches short of it as the Boy gripped tightly held him back with his own hand.

He faced down the Man and answered.

"It stays." The Boy bent the guard's arm back and threw him towards the others.

The Wiry Man stepped between the guards and moved towards him.

"You think we're here to listen to you?"

He nonchalantly stepped closer.

"You think we're interested in anything you say?"

Closer.

"You think we're intimidated by you?"

He was within reaching distance.

"You think we're afraid to blow your head clear from the neck it sits on?"

The Boy swung for the Wiry Man's face with the reflexes of a cat.

The Wiry Man caught the blow without looking at it.

The Man leaned in and whispered.

"We're not."

He landed a punch square in the Boy's face and sent him to the floor. The Man turned and walked back through the line of guards. Behind him, the Boy stood up and felt the nakedness of his face. He gritted his teeth and jumped towards the Wiry Man.

The Man spoke again while squeezing the eyemask in his hand. "Not a good idea."

The line opened up straight in the middle and the guard that been thrown walked forward with the hose in his hands.

He caught the Boy with the hose before he could even flinch in the air. He slammed into the floor as the water pounded him from the front and shielded his bare face with his forearms against the constant stream of powerful water.

Slowly, the water became lighter until it only lay in a puddle around him. Labored gasps for air were the only sounds he made as the men systematically left the room.

The Wiry Man turned again as he exited.

"Welcome to the Big House."

He grabbed the doorknob.

"And oh, yeah… watch out for AIDS."

The door closed behind him.


	2. two: The Meal

Most people hate mornings. Most people hate the idea of starting another day in the same situation they've been in all of their lives. Most people despise seeing the surge of drones following the same routine, day in and day out.

Most people.

Not these people. These people were awake long before the lights flickered on at seven in the morning. Some of them stood by the door of their cell; some of them sat at their beds, counting down the time in their heads; some of them stretched out as best as they could on the floor and paced back and forth in their small quarters; some massaged sores on their body collected from the previous day. Everyone waited for the Flicker and the Call.

Every day was a fight.

Every fight survived was respect earned through fear.

And fear was currency in the Big House.

The Boy hadn't slept the entire night. Although, it hadn't helped that "the entire night" had only been the six hours since he had arrived. The heavy, deep breathing of his sleeping cellmate hadn't eased his paranoid vigilance, either; the bulky prisoner had slept in a dark corner of the cell, sitting down on something near the wall. A constant dripping of water from the broken faucet over the sink had been a monotonous reminder of his lack of sleep and was the only sound in the entire room.

The Flicker interrupted the hours of dreary solitude: a dim overhead light weakly flashed through the single-story hallway and went out.

The cells came alive.

Bedsprings groaned miserably as the last of the prisoners moved towards the doors. In the darkness, shuffling feet made their way towards the thick glass that faced the central hallway.

The lights flickered again and stayed on.

"Rise and shine!"

The Call.

"It's time to start another day, you worthless scum!"

The Warden sauntered through the hallway with a steel rifle in his hand. The soles of his leather shoes creaked on the concrete floor as he continued his daily morning soliloquy.

"Get up and out! Try any funny stuff and I'll shoot your balls right out from between your ugly, tattooed legs."

Hushed laughter showed that the inmates didn't take the threat lightly: they had no doubt that the Warden would be true to his word if anyone tried to make a break for the outside; the only humor came from the splendor that would befall the voluntary eunuch that would try it.

The Warden arrived at the first cell on the block and slowly faced the grins that shifted from behind glass, eager for temporary freedom. His fingers loosely gripped the antiqued rifle, but no one was fooled: he was better with the old gun than any of the other guards with their modern lasers. They tried to convince him to trade in his hunting rifle for a more modern gun nearly everyday, but he insisted that nothing stopped an escaping inmate like "the feel ova cold bullet lodged in his knee." The Warden had a medium height magnified doubly by the muscles that framed his figure from behind his uniform; his swagger oozed a confidence that set most people in line.

Most people.

"Left!"

The doors on the row opposite of the Boy's simultaneously opened and the prisoners stepped forward soon afterward. They waited, impatiently, offensively, and lewdly, but not a step out of place.

"Out!"

They staggered out mischievously.

The door had barely closed behind the two guards that accompanied the first line when the second order rang out.

"Right!"

A slick click resounded through the hallway as the all of the doors raised.

All but one.

"Out!"

The parade left the hall in an perfect imitation of the first line.

The prisoners emptied out quickly as the two armed guards prodded them along with visual threats.

The butt of the rifle rested lazily across his chest as the Warden approached the unopened cell.

"Well, sirree! It looks like we got ourselves a newcomer."

The Boy looked up from his seat on the bed and eyed the small group of guards stand around the Warden. They stared back with expressionless faces. He measured each one up and began discreetly flexing every muscle in his arms and legs in case of an attack.

"HAH!" The Warden doubled over in laughter. "Kid thinks we all got together ta try to mess up _his_ miserable face!" He whipped a pretend tear from his eye as the door to the cell opened.

"Don't be so full of yourself, Numbnuts. You should be more scared of your little buddy over there. We goin' in to get him."

Silence followed as nobody moved; the Boy fought the urge to turn around and look at whatever was sleeping behind him.

"Son of a— Look, kid, get up and out of our way or I swear I'll shoot you a new hole right where your sitting." The Boy stood deliberately and rigidly walked through the threshold of his cell. Two armed guards came to his side and instructed him to walk ahead. As he slowly trudged along, he examined the shady inside of the cell as the Warden sent in another guard and raised his rifle anxiously.

The stone wall of the cell passed by just as a dim red light flashed out from the cell. The Boy kept his stare at the corner of his eye as he walked further and further away from the tense figure of the Warden faintly lit by the red glow.

"Walk faster, punk."

B r e a k

It slowly oozed around the metal and gathered at the tip, accumulating into a heavy mass before breaking off and free falling through the air into more of it's kind.

The Boy dipped the spoon back into the gloop before him and repeated the dazzling display of gravity working on tasteless prison food.

Noise inundated the world around him: raucous laughter erupted from tables near and far, the sound of plastic on metal clanked rhythmically in the nearby food line, and whispers sailed like arrows above the heads of the ravenous inmates. The thick feel of hatred and revenge filled all of the empty pockets of noise from the faces of bloodthirsty prisoners.

Through it all, the Boy looked at his spoon.

Drip.

"It only keeps you alive if you eat it."

The voice came from the right on his previously-empty table, but he refused to acknowledge even its direction. He nodded lightly and continued concentrating on the fall of the gray paste.

The buzz of the feeding grounds resumed it's play normally.

"The only way to win in this place is to stay alive."

Shouts came from a nearby table and filled the awkward silence of the Boy's deliberate preoccupation.

Amazingly, the voice was perfectly audible through the sea of commotion. "The only way to live is eat."

The Boy dropped the spoon and grit his teeth.

"Then why don't _you_ go ahead and eat the damn thin—"

His eyes stopped him short.

The solid titanium in front of him smiled mockingly. "I would, but I don't have a stomach per say."

The Boy fumbled words across his mouth and struggled to regain mental balance.

The Android extended a hand completely composed of steel and nodded slightly. "I'm called Cyberion. Cy by the locals." The Boy reached forward and gripped the metallic hand before him: it was cold, lifeless, and immovable. The red glow that radiated from certain portions of his body were the only hint of warmth. "And you," he continued, "must be my cellmate."

The Boy retracted his hand carefully, and looked the robot sitting next to him over from head to toe.

"My name is..." The Boy paused and looked back to his food. "...Call me Gray."

Lawless clamor drugged the conversation; like an imprisoned juxtaposition of size and shape, the giant and the boy sat rigidly at the lone table in noisy silence. Gray continued the idle play on his plate, but kept an eye deadlocked on the android beside him: the behemoth sat perfectly fixed at the table and stared with two translucent red eyes at the area straight ahead. He was covered completely by stainless steel; the red light patches glowed softly only at select panels on his body.

He looked mechanically perfect.

At the same time, his voice carried the feel of a human; a quality hung around him that softened the terror that his cold, sharp steel inspired.

"What are you in for?"

Cy's question hung heavily in the air as Gray kept playing with the slush before him.

He answered after hesitation.

"Murder."

Deep in the background, someone jumped up and started yelling.

"Murder?"

Three guards ran along a wall of the lunchroom towards a scuffle that started near the edge.

"Murder."

The guards arrived at the disturbance and whipped out their clubs with the ferocity of hunting lions. Steel struck flesh as the clubs flew through the crowd.

"Just murder?"

Cards flew through the air, shouts erupted from the crowd, and the guards yelled back as they apparently encountered resistance. A shout stood above the others. "I'll kill that cheating whore!"

"Multiple homicide."

A single shout rang out and immediate hush followed as a loud thud resounded through the cafeteria. Two guards bent down and reappeared facing the distant door. The third guard followed the other two as they slowly exited the room dragging someone behind them. Through the mess of prisoners that stood in the way, images of a blue-skinned goon flashed.

Cy looked at the distant prisoner. "There goes The Magician..." he muttered.

He returned his gaze to Gray―who was still captivated by the gray mass on his plate―and continued.

"Where?"

Gray continued normally. "A park."

The Android threw a double take. "A park?"

A nod confirmed the question.

"Why in a park?"

Gray dropped the spoon in the air and it plummeted gracefully into the pile on the plate, causing a mess on the table; he turned fully to face Cy.

"Why not?"

He didn't even wait for an answer. "Have you ever _been_ to a park? They're filled with obnoxious, greedy kids running all over the place, screaming for the attention of their peers and mothers, who are too busy loudly gossiping about the slutty single mom next door to even care about the fact that the fruit of their promiscuous loins is about to fall fifteen feet off a jungle jim into solid concrete floor. Overblown, noisy, crowded, empty; those places are cesspools for the cancer of unworthiness that eats away at the world..."

The noise of the lunchroom rose to dull roar and normality resumed, but a silence continued between the two prisoners.

Gray muttered the rest.

"...And I hate mimes."


	3. three: The Yard

A small brown rabbit hopped happily along the grass.

The long green blades brushed against his sides as he scampered along the trail, chasing a small green grasshopper; curiosity navigated his trail and he followed freely and carelessly.

Without warning, the grasshopper leaped through the air and flew through a wall of some sort. The rabbit hopped over to the wall and stared curiously. It was full of patterned holes and made of thin silver strips as shiny as the pond by his burrow.

The rabbit sniffed the air in front of the wall. It was warm and tingly, like nothing he had ever felt. The grasshopper fluttered from behind the wall and the rabbit returned his attention back to it. He decided to sniff closer to inspect the unusual insect.

His whiskers neared closer and closer towards the grasshopper. Slowly, so as to not disturb it, his nose inched forward.

Suddenly, the rabbit's nose touched the wall.

Three hundred volts of unmerciful electricity tore through his body.

The hair on his small white tail burst into flames.

His rigid body shook uncontrollably.

Blood leaked from the orifices of his head.

And the eyes burst from his skull.

His charred face finally fell from the metallic wall and onto the dirt of the floor, but his left leg continued twitching long after he laid dead on the ground.

The grasshopper jumped through the hole and landed on his body; it stepped forward and flew off into the wind.

Gray stood on the other side of the fence, staring down at the electrocuted rabbit.

"Dumb animal."

He looked away from the smoke rising from the scorched flesh. The yard laid before him in all of it's rundown splendor: weeds filled the few gaps where concrete hadn't been paved and dust coated the ground. Faded white lines outlined an old basketball court in the middle of the cement. The prisoners were scattered around the yard in clusters, talking, shouting, laughing, killing time; Gray stood away from groups, outside the imaginary ring of thieves.

The Android stood on the opposite end of the yard, having dismissed himself informally to collect some money after the brief lunch. Gray stared at him from afar, at his inexpressive eyes, his cold, steel covered face, and his smooth, mechanical hands. All in all, at least the robot knew when to shut up.

"Hey, Cutie."

Unlike the rest of the yard...

"Interested in a quick game of cards?"

Gray turned his head around and faced the direction of the sound; his eyes rested on a tall figure less than ten feet away. Her long red hair swayed to the rhythm of her steps; a seductive smile was draped across her face like a satin sheet; he felt her eyes devilishly groping at him and couldn't help but wonder what she wanted.

But he turned right back around and continued staring off.

The Girl leaned back on her leg and rested a hand on her chin as she arrived to a spot beside him.

"Yeah, didn't think you looked much like a card player." She shifted her weight to the opposite leg as her smile widened. "You seem like the type of man would be into something more... pleasurable."

Gray turned around slowly; he looked her in the eye and responded. "What do you want?"

She leaned in and answered slowly, her face only inches away from his. "The better question is... what do you want? And what are you willing to pay to get it?"

He stay motionless for a minute, staring at her with unmoving scrutiny.

Then he smirked.

"What do _I_ want?"

"You got it, cowboy," she answered with impish smile, still only inches from his.

He continued quietly. "What I want is for you..."

She leaned her ear in closer to him.

"...to tell everything you know about him."

She followed the direction of her finger to the grimacing cyborg yards away.

Her eyes darkened. "_Him?_"

"Yes," Gray answered with a mocking smile, "him."

The Girl stood straight back up and pulled gently a metal collar around her neck. "Cyberion."

She took a cigarette and lit up slowly. Gray raised an eyebrow: he hadn't seen a single other person in the entire yard with such thin and fine cigarettes; in fact, he hadn't seen any cigarettes at all.

"You'd be smart to stay away from him." She drew in deeply. "He was a soldier... decorated an' honored an' all that fluff. At least he was, but he had some sort of accident on the battlefield: tore his flesh off."

She inhaled, exhaled another breath, and stood lopsidedly, apparently annoyed with the job that had been ordered.

"Some scientists tried to build him back up with machines and metal organs or whatever as part of some government operation. Anyways, he totally flipped out. Blamed them for 'making him what he was' and 'giving him empty life' and other rants. In his first six minutes of online time, he killed all nine of the geeks who built him."

A cloud of fine smoke trailed from her lips.

"Killed ten more people on his way out of the building. Took the feds _twenty hours_ to trap him and shut him down. Afterwards, they cut him open, deprogrammed his aggression or something and strung him back up..." She flicked the cigarette away and looked at Gray as she trailed off. "He doesn't fight anymore, doesn't even lift a finger. And nobody fights him. Not that they could they wanted to..."

Gray returned her gaze. "Why would they put an android in a federal prison?"

"Because the law classifies me as human."

Cy walked in from a small distance and stood in front of the two talking inmates. He glanced at Gray, then shifted his gaze towards the Girl. They stood in silence for a minute, neither moving nor even breathing.

She finally interrupted the silence.

"Cy."

He returned the greeting.

"Red."

The silence continued as Gray stood outside of the morbid staring contest.

"Well," she said, interrupting the unnatural hush and smiling darkly, "pleasure doing business with you."

She winked at Gray. "And I'm sure you can find a way of paying me back later."

Red threw one last glance and walked away. "Nice chatting with you again, Cy." Red hair swung behind in perfect synchronization with her steps and the orange jumpsuit that clung to her did nothing to hide the lean, sculpted body behind it.

"You'd do best staying away from her." Gray faced the hulking android beside him with a knowing smirk, expecting to hear a certain speech for the second time that day.

"Who is she?"

The Android kept his eyes glued on the distant figure of Red, shamelessly offering merchandise to the next customer. "_That_ is what a black widow looks like in human form." Cy peeled his eyes away and met Gray's gaze.

"How do they let women in here?"

"Better question is how they manage to keep them out; the bureaucrats in charge of this place don't care. Most women that get in here are more than strong enough to take care of themselves anyway; take Red for example: she's psychotic, doesn't believe in limits or rules or the law. Does whatever she wants, whenever she wants, wherever she wants."

Gray continued his stare. "Sounds a little presumptuous to me."

Cy exhaled deeply.

"Do you know why she's in here?"

Gray apathetically shrugged.

"It was all over the news about a year ago..."

He stared straight ahead, unwavering. "I don't watch the news."

"It was an orgy."

"What?"

"Red and five or six other kids—all of them in college—got together at a motel for an all-night sexcapade."

Silence.

"And...?"

"And they went at it like nobody's business! After everybody got their fill, though, little Red Riding Whore got it in her head to take things up a notch; she decided to try out some of her more... _intense_... sexual practices on a group that seemed open-minded."

Longer silence.

Gray finally gave in. "Well, what happened?"

"They played along with it at first, probably out of sick curiosity, but gradually they started disliking the idea, until they started physically resisted her advances." Cy looked out over the yard. "As you can guess, she didn't take it very well. She was determined to get her fill and ended up completely slaughtering the lot of them, all while getting off on the sick delight from the games she played with them. The cops that closed the case didn't even describe to the media what it was she had been doing to them, only that the bodies were scarred beyond recognition."

Both of the men held their silence unwaveringly. The perversity of the story seemed to take its time slowly sinking into the atmosphere.

_PREEEEEEEEEEEET._

A shrill whistle pierced the air.

"A'ight, let's do this," a small Black Inmate shouted out in the middle of the court. "E'erbody that wants in better drag themselves out here now!"

A small ring of people gathered around the young prisoner as he produced an old, worn basketball and bounced it dramatically between his legs. The group of inmates gathered together and divided themselves into two teams of four,

"You gonna join in?" Cy asked, hiding a mechanical smile.

"No."

"You sure?" the Android asked with mock sincerity. "It'd be a great time to make some new friends and get some exercise."

"I get enough exercise," Gray answered sharply, "and I sure as hell don't need to know any of these lowlifes."

He suddenly hardened as his robotic face grew strangely somber. "Listen, if you're gonna be stayin' in here, you better get it into your head that you _need_ friends in the right places to survive." Cy looked away. "No better way to get respect than in a friendly game of streetball."

Gray didn't answer.

In the circle ahead, a team stood with a fifth player standing beside them; the opposing yelled out to the crowd for one more player. Gray walked out from behind a group of talking inmates.

"I'll play."

The Black Inmate that started the game bounced the ball to him.

"Bring it, Whitey."

B r e a k

He looked like an animal: his hair hung in a long streamlined ponytail of light brown hair from his head and blended in with his equally long beard; his eyes were like polished bone and canine teeth decorated the inside of his huge mouth; his hulking figure was a tower, muscular and daunting with the basketball in his right hand.

The man looked like an animal...

And he was two steps away from steamrolling Gray.

Gray stood on the balls of both feet with his hands sternly in a defensive position. Sweat soaked his back, his hair was a mess in his eyes, and his muscles were ready for anything...

But the man in front of him looked like a damn _animal_.

Just as the mammoth of a man started a drive right into his face, Gray took a flying leap into the air and straight toward his hulking opponent. The Hairy Man faltered, confused by the speed of his adversary; Gray took that hesitation to his advantage. In the middle of his leap, he snatched the ball and landed in a sliding crouch on the concrete. The Hairy Man stopped and frantically spun around, searching for the ball that had been his only seconds before.

But by then, Gray was already on the opposite side of the court.

Nine players, including his own team, were caught completely off guard.

Gray jogged to the basket and did a simple layup; the ball went in with no trouble whatsoever.

A prisoner with a pocket watch stood up from the sidelines and yelled at the top of his lungs. "Game over!"

The rest of the team jogged up to Gray with crooked smiles and noisily congratulated him.

"Way to go, my _man_!"

"Give it up, dawg!"

"_That's_ stickin' it to 'em."

The five players crowded around and shouted noisily completely ignoring the odd looks of the opposite team.

"Hey, ladies!" the Black Inmate on the other team yelled out. Gray's team stopped shouting for a second and turned to the yelling prisoner. "You forgetting something?" He stepped forward from the angry team behind him. "Like the fact that we just whooped your little asses?"

"Man, who cares?" yelled the captain of Gray's team, the tall Hispanic with a buzz cut. "Ya'll a bunch of cheaters anyway!"

Gray slowly walked away to the place where Cy stood among the medium-sized crowd that had lined that side of the rundown basketball court. He came to a stop next him and stood idly beside, catching his breath and staring at the argument that started up.

"That's bull! We coulda beat your team easy if you hadn't been pullin' those cheap tricks!"

They both gazed at the building tension.

"That was weak."

Gray turned towards Cy. "What?"

"You and I both know you coulda done a lot better," Cy answered without returning Gray's look.

The shouts in front of them grew louder.

"Maybe I didn't want to do better."

Suddenly, the Black Inmate swung at the Hispanic; he barely moved back to avoid the punch when the inmate came at him with a full-blown tackle. The remaining seven basketball players spread out, moving further and further into the crowd that slowly came forward to watch the fight.

"And why the hell would you not want to beat out everybody?"

The two prisoners struggled heatedly until the Black Inmate arose on top, swinging furious at the hands the second prisoner held up in defense of his face. His blows became increasingly stronger and stronger until he was beating the man beneath him senseless; he managed to knock away his hands and raised his fist to bring it down square on the loser's face.

**Thwack.**

The Hispanic opened his eyes and saw the black prisoner thrown aside.

His lax body laid motionless.

Blood had already begun forming a pool from the dent in his head.

And his eyes stood frozen with a look of pained emptiness.

The Hispanic finally rose from the floor and brushed the dirt and blood off from himself.

The Warden emerged from the building beside the yard with smoke rising from his rifle. "Anyone ELSE wanna throw a punch?"

The entire yard was silent.

"That's what I thought!" He turned back to the building. "Time to go in."

The prisoners followed in mass formation at a distance.

The Hispanic hesitated before leaving, and leaned over the barely conscious body on the floor; he eyed it carefully and spit.

Gray turned and faced Cy.

"_That's_ why."

They followed the masses towards the building.


	4. four: The Heat

_Lies... Lies... All lies... You've killed before right?_

Giggles bounce off walls.

_...got through the door she was wearing nothing but... you can't see me. Where's the exit You know..._

Whispers.

_...open your eyes close your mouth Listen..._

Smiles.

_YOU KILLED HER do you know me I don't..._

_...I saw you do it where's the harm? four for a dollar... empty vase basket case ring around the rose..._

They grimace with teeth of broken mirrors.

_too much to do it right now EXPLOSION riding the Beast wears the mind what are you STUPID?_

And they laugh.

_the least of my worries can I try? Boiling_ _get away from the windows_

Hard.

_dirty water dirty water dirty water dirty water clean hands_

Beaten angels.

_CONSUME._

She smiles and looks at the walls.

They dance for her.

_Little droplets of dirty water._

And the Freak sways to their music.

_CONSUME._

B r e a k

It was the heat.

It was the heat that seeped in through the air and fried the prisoners' skin as they slaved away at their daily laborings; it came to the point where they couldn't distinguish between the steam in the air and the sweat on their backs.

But they continued their task; if they didn't, the heat would be the pain they would miss the most.

"Take it down and get an empty one."

A sharp screech pinched the air as the wheels slowly began turning. The weight of the cart slowly gained momentum as Gray guided it down an empty aisle in the back of the room. He glided along the wall, hidden behind the dull roar of running water and the buzz of a hundred simultaneous conversations; in the distance, masses of inmates laughed at jeers and insults and jokes that weren't funny...

"...like me 'n yo Mom."

"...The pizza can feed a family!"

"...the nun walks in, sees him holding the banana between his legs, and says..."

"...I never heard a man talk so high-pitched after that!"

The cart advanced gradually towards a large opening in the wall, roughly the size of two side-by-side pickup trucks. Gray crossed the threshold with the pile of steaming cloth rolling steadily in front of him.

"Leave it here."

The large cart rolled forward, slowly losing momentum until reaching a complete stop next to a number of identical ones; each waited in a wide line, adding to the collective steam that rose from the herd and filled the room. On the receiving end, four prisoners dug their hands furiously into the nearest pile of clothes and shoveled barehanded through a medium-sized, circular entry hole.

He walked back through a cloud with another cart―empty this time―and reached his early position next to the stone-faced Android; a cart rested beside him, already three-quarters full with orange clothes.

"The cycle continues," Cy commented without turning his head.

Gray stood listlessly as he rolled the empty cart away so it could be used next. Cy quickly dumped pieces of the load as the level of the cart slowly grew. Around him, eleven inmates mirrored his exact motions, waiting impatiently for the next trip across the heat of monotony.

"Everybody's in for life..."

It was more of a statement than a question.

The Android nodded in response. "They only send you to the Big House if you have a life sentence or death sentence..."

Crude laughter echoed in the background.

"...and, in the end, everyone gets a death sentence."

The weak whine of the rolling wheels gave a reply as Gray slowly led the full cart along the back walls.

Above the bustling anthill, privy eyes kept close vigilance on the group. Every look, every movement, every breath was monitored closely. Hidden in the shadows of the catwalk and under a thick cloud of steam, fingers rested on triggers in eager anticipation of the next link that would break in the chain of labor.

Nobody looked up; they knew what awaited them: silhouettes of Law, armed to the teeth for brutality. And nobody wanted to be the next on the roster of fallen scum.

Time passed slowly.

"...put 'em in the ashtray!"

"...you an' me gonna spend some quality _time_ together."

"...let me go get my wife!"

It crept by like the sweat on the prisoners' faces, hitting snags and almost stopping completely at times. There were no clocks to count the passing minutes, no windows low enough to see the position of the sun, no visible indication that the outside world even continued to exist.

So they kept pushing.

They continued until they were told to stop.

"Everybody. Including you."

The Android turned to the Boy and answered nonchalantly, "Including me. Except that the law becomes kinda fuzzy when it comes to killing things that are barely legally alive."

Gray walked the cart along the back and returned with another empty one.

"Any day, I suspect they'll pull a shotgun out and give me two to the head," he continued, picking up large piles of steaming orange clothes from a moving conveyor belt and placed them in the empty cart. "That'll clear the whole mess up."

Gray merely gripped the handles of the cull cart and pushed it away, leaving in silence. As he strolled along the usual path, his eyes moved over the varied faces in the crowd. Lying eyes, devious smiles, ugly faces; nothing in the remaining room showed what he needed.

His gaze wandered higher underneath downcast eyebrows; through darkness he spotted the vigilant specters.

Breastplates.

Helmets.

Facial masks.

Shoulder, forearm, thigh, knee, and rear armor pieces.

They wore protection nearly everywhere. Everywhere except...

The squeaking wheels came to a rest.

The Boy let out a soft laugh. He returned his glance to the people around him, holding on to the small smile on his face.

Near him, a small bald boy fidgeted nervously with clothes muttered repeated curses under his breath...

A black girl fiercely tore clothes off of the conveyor belt into a pile beside her...

"No." Gray shook his head. He weaved through the maze of inmate work stations, running mental diagnostics on every perceived being around him. "No."

Returning again to the original station, his lips parted slightly. "When exactly does—"

A piercing whistle cut through the noise in the air like a flaming sword, pausing conversations, stopping activity, and stealing attention.

The Miners threw the last of the clothes into the carts as the Pushers lead the final load to the end of the room.

"**OUT!**"

Bodies pressed forward in dull murmur through two large doors held open by three guards. Arrhythmic footsteps led the escape of the unearthly heat through a wide corridor as the prisoners trudged into the passageway, flanked down the length by guns.

The Young Guard stood on one side while the other two held the opposite door. His fingers moved absentmindedly around the ring on his fourth finger as he watched the inmates file past.

"Ooof!"

His train of thought was interrupted as a prisoner fell on him and hit the floor.

The Young Guard moved back as the inmate crawled back to his feet.

"Emsorrysir..." he mumbled as he back away into the crowd.

The guard stared at the prisoner as he walked past and out the door. He raised a hand and wiped away the sweat from his brow. "Don't let it happen again."

The last of the prisoners left the room and the Young Guard stepped forward, letting the door behind him.

"Ey, are you gonna sign today?" one of the other guards asked.

The guard reached for his breast pocket. Feeling thin cloth, he reached in his pockets. He felt along his jacket and shook his head.

"Nah, you take care of it. I'll do it tomorrow."

The padlock slipped into the door handle and clicked shut.

The guards turned and followed the line in the rear...

After a minute of walking, the mass arrived to a larger room with several branching hallways on the sides.

"That corridor."

Cy turned in the direction of Gray's finger.

"Administration. The Warden's office is down there..." He turned to Gray. "Why?"

"No reason."

He faced forward and lightly gripped the pen in his pant pockets.

"No reason at all."

B r e a k

_"She's not responding well."_

Silence.

_"She's not responding at all." He pauses. "Insane..."_

_"No," the first voice responds. "No, she's still in there. She knows everything that's going on."_

_The second stares through thick glasses._

_"I don't know, it's been one hundred forty-six seconds since she last blinked."_

Silence.

_"She must be inside It's head. Who knows what they're doing..."_

_A long silence follows._

_The two men shuffle papers on their clipboards and take their gaze away from the sitting girl on the floor._

_They murmur among themselves._

She blinks.

_They continue conversing._

The Freak tips back and falls on her back. Her head hits the floor and a dull thud echoes through the white room.

_"She's losing it."_

_The first one nods. "It's only a matter of time before they find a reason to take her out."_

_"I hope they do. Soon."_

Her eyes are blank.

Cold.

Emotionless.

Dead.

Suddenly, the Freak's eyes turn upward from the floor towards the two voices.

They leak ecstasy.

_"You know they can't chart her?"_

_"Figures."_

_A long pause._

_The first man drops his clipboard._

_"I neeed to kill her right now."_

_The second one shakes his head while staring at the papers in his hand. "Don't waste your tyme."_

_He takes a step forward. "Drommit, I have to do it, right noww."_

_The second man looks up. "Caallm doownn."_

_His eyes flare. _

_"Vuuck yoo. I'mm dooin iitt."_

_He moves towards the body in the center of the room and the first man grabs him by the shoulder. He's waiting for it; the angry second man swings his elbow at the first's face._

_It connects and the first man reels back._

_His wild eyes sit above a thin smear of blood from his nose._

_The man reaches for his nose and wipes a small bit from his upper lip._

_"**DIYE YUO INSOLLEANT BAASTEIRD!**"_

_He charges forward and tackles the second man straight in the gut; they fall gracefully through the air and hit the floor with a sickening SQUISH._

_Instantly, they burst into millions of dirty droplets and fly into the air, reaching the ceiling and hanging suspended in time._

Hold.

Hold.

Hold.

_They plunge straight down._

Violet eyes follow each one.

_They grow long and thin like hot daggers of steel hurtling towards the sprawled girl on the floor._

Violet eyes.

_They reach the Freak._

Blink.

And like that... they disappear.

Fade.

Dissolve.

Vanish.

The Freak laughs aloud.

_Because she knows nothing was ever there to begin with._

_CONSUME._


	5. five: The Power

The last rays of the dying sun gleamed from the miserable cracks of the distant mountains and joined a line of inmates in entering the empty courtyard. The dark, cloudy sky hung from invisible gallows as the rigid line of prisoners splintered into the yard to countless groupings.

Whispered hushes accompanied by howling winds scurried across the open gaps of concrete and made their way to their intended audiences.

"I said a _quarter-_kilo, ya dumbfu—"

"...And he won't wake up tomorrow? Good."

"Just a quickie."

"You've killed before, right?"

"They give us an hour... It's barely enough to meet the federally mandated requirements for outdoor atmospheric exposure to prisoners." Cy stepped out from the door and moved along the wall as Gray trailed silently behind. "But at the same time, they divide it to stop anything big from developing during the end of the day."

They stopped and faced a group of three convicts standing closely together: a woman pushed two small, full pouches of an unknown substance into the hands of a conspicuous customer with transparent skin over his head; his companion shifted neurotically beside him, eyes shining like pale moons and hands twitching nearly as much as his lips.

Only from a few inches away could his soft mutterings be heard: "...they took my mind... took my mind... made me dumb... they took my mind..."

The man next to him quickly pocketed the pouches and slithered a response as his head pulsated underneath the translucent scalp. "Freshly transmutated. Wait until you see what _this_ does to your mind, Doctor."

Gray left the scene and sat down at the only bench in the yard, a sturdy wooden structure that stood oddly intact and un-vandalized. Seconds later, he was quietly joined by the Android in the darkening yard.

"Why is she following us?"

Cy didn't immediately react to the inquiry; the dark orbs of red light stared straight ahead amid the crowd of shuffling convicts several yards away.

"Same reason she follows anybody around here," he finally answered. "Wants to know something."

They sat motionless for nearly a minute as the activities continued around; the haggling murmurs lapped like waves into their ears, but merely fluttered around them.

"Don't look at her. Don't talk to her. Don't acknowledge her presence," Cy droned mechanically. "You do that and she'll have you pinned under more influence than you can possibly handle."

They both turned in the bench to face the spot where the Blonde had been sitting cross-legged only moments before.

"And don't even bother searching for her, she's very good and blending away into the earth when she wants to."

As predicted, the maskless pair of eyes settled on open air and empty space.

A few stragglers lingered around keeping to themselves, but no one even remotely similar to the thin young girl who had been following them appeared in the area.

Just bare concrete.

...And a dead rabbit in the far distance.

They stayed fixed in place as the far off prisoners scuffled about.

"She's a spy," Cy spoke to air. "Few things get past her and no one goes unnoticed. You don't want to trust Gaea... ... **ever**."

The two turned back around in the bench...

"She'll turn on you faster than a dirty—"

...And met a pair of glowing violet eyes.

The Freak loomed on top of the bench, her eyes parallel to Gray's and long strands of unkempt purple hair swaying between.

"You need my Angel," she whispered.

For several seconds, silence took control of the yard: inmates laughed noiselessly and the angry clamor of blackmarket barter faded into the empty background.

Wait...

"You need dirty water."

Her smudged face suddenly broke out into a ludicrously wide grin; she leaped away from Gray, landed on Cy, and pulled her shackled hands directly up to his metallic face.

"But don't worry," she giggled like a demented six-year-old, "I have clean hands!"

A red glow shined steadily on her face as the Android stared back at her madly radiant face, completely devoid of response. The Boy shifted in his seat, reaching into his pocket in anticipation of trouble.

But the orange-clad girl sat just as still in front of the emotionless robot and held up the two thin, pale hands bound at their raw wrists.

"I see you two have taken to lesser company."

Red emerged behind the bench and rested her hands on the backrest.

"I'm actually kind of surprised..."

Her voiced softened as she leaned in to only inches from the two sitting prisoners' ears.

"...And here I thought _I_ held the unpaid debt."

They shifted their gaze rearward to the mischievous smile behind them.

"What do you want, Red?" Cy asked, forgoing the banter.

"Want?" She held a hand to her chest in mock indignation. "Why, I don't want _anything_. I was simply intrigued by the sight of you two gentlemen in the company of her." Her smiled faded as she pronounced the last word with a heavy dose of contempt.

Cy continued unfazed: "Roth? She's just standing—"

Gray followed Cy's stare to a distant corner where the Freak sat crouched, tenderly caressing a pattern onto a brick wall with a look of overwhelming affection.

All three continued to stare at the enraptured girl.

"You know, there's a reason they only let her out once a month..."

Gray stood from the bench and faced the other two.

"Who is she?"

"Roth," came the reply as Red slid into the empty bench seat. "No one knows where she came from, and no one knows how long till she gets out."

"Nobody remembers how long she's been here," Cy added. "No one even remembers a time when she _wasn't_ here."

Gray nodded and motioned toward the Girl.

"Her neck: she wore the same metal collar you've got on."

The pair of green eyes flashed with fury and her jaw clenched tightly as her hand flew to the metallic ring that encircled the amber skin of her neck; the muscles along the nape were visibly tense.

"This... ... this... ... is a damper." Her arm slowly relaxed. "A damper on our power."

Wind rustled angrily across the shadows of the yard; the shouts across the area grew steadily and dragged the blaring veil of silence over the inmates near the bench.

Shouts.

Murmurs.

Quiet deals and black trade.

The microcosmic underworld moved on around them.

"TIME TO GO IN!"

Bodies pressed forward to join the growing crowd around the only entrance.

Cy stood silently and moved away toward the crowd; four sets of eyes watched him until he reached the mass of convicts.

Hesitation.

A quick pause.

Then...

Gray took a tentative step forward.

"You want me to owe you even **more** than I do now?"

Red left the bench and walked beside him with a deviously curious sparkle in her eyes.

"I'm listening..."

He watched the Android carry himself through the steel doorframe many yards away.

High above, the sky darkened to the shade of an ocean before a tempest; a large flock of black specks jerked across the sky, squawking loudly and flapping madly towards the distant horizon. The winds gradually whipped about faster through the bodies left scattered around the yard.

"Do me a small favor..."

B r e a k

"You know the deal: one meal skipped for each word I hear!"

_CLACK._

The lights died and darkness took its place instantly. With it came a dead silence that walked up and down the corridor that stretched past all of the jail cells and threatened each and every inhabitant.

A hulking mass of metal sat crouched in the corner of his cell, connected to the wall and completely inactive. Three feet away, his cellmate lay motionless in bed, arms behind his head and eyes drilling holes into the shadowed ceiling.

Silence...

Gray rolled to the side and dropped off of the top bunk of the beds; his feet made a gentle tap on the ground as he crouched to the floor with his landing.

"Cy." He glided up next to the Android and stopped a yard from the dull robot. "Wake up."

The robot remained motionless as Gray stood in place.

Silence.

Quiet breathing from far away.

"You don't fool me," he whispered, "they couldn't shut you off completely with the tools they were using."

Faintly, a light flickered in the Android's chest.

There was no sound, as he made no further movements.

"It's time, Cyberion," he replied. "Time to do what I have to do."

His cold eyes glared back as the robot sat unmoved. Gray reached into his prison uniform and pulled out a small gun; he pointed directly at the Android's head.

"It's time to kill you—"

"You'll take the entire prison with you."

A violent lull filled the two feet between them as the gun stood as motionlessly as the robot it was pointing at.

A full minute passed in absolute silence.

Two.

Five.

Ten minutes.

"There is weapons-grade uranium in my core. If at any point, the biological link to my system is interrupted, even for a nanosecond, it would trigger an explosion that would wipe this prison and all of its guests off the face of the earth." Two red orbs glowed back to life as Cy twitched in his seat. "And how did you manage to smuggle an EMP gun into prison?"

The Boy answered without moving in any way: "They never check under the skin."

His robotic eyes peered through the darkness and caught sight of a small bloodstain on the prison uniform near the lower left ribcage.

"Impressive," Cy answered, "and much better than any of the other ones. I have to say you truly earned your wings with this one."

His eyes continued to stare mechanically back at the Boy. "Who sent you?"

Gray continued to hold the gun up.

"Doesn't matter," he replied stoically. "The only thing that does is this..."

Slowly, the gun moved down and pointed at the ground.

"I'm no one's Apprentice," the Boy answered coldly with a slight spark of anger in his eye, "and it's high time I became my own Master."

Gradually, a crooked smile made it's way across Gray's face.

"And you, my mechanical friend, now have an offer before you…"


	6. six: The City

The moan echoed down the corridor.

Soft, weak, but excited; given up to resistance and simply surrendered to walls; it traveled to the glass window of the guard station and scarcely made a sound inside. It would have been enough to alert any guard of activity in the hall, had they paid even the least of attention to their surroundings.

But no ears were present inside to notice.

Halfway down the long hall of prison cells, a thick clear wall stood as the only barrier between the Young Guard and the slender leg that held his mouth open and quickened his heartbeat.

"I'm sorry for that noise, Officer," she offered with hypnotizing sincerity, "I really don't know what came over me."

He fidgeted at his collar and swallowed nervously. "Th-That's okay, Ma'am—Miss... Miss."

"Officer," Red called, moving slowly forward and becoming with her eyes, "I think I need your help in here."

"I-I think after our last... um—I don't think that I can... _we_ can..."

"Please?" The collar of the orange uniform had managed to slip during the Young Guard's stuttering reply and revealed a warm, bronzed, and bare shoulder lingering underneath. "Last time?"

"One... one last time..."

Without the slightest sound, the red bulb above the cell flickered green; he lowered the electronic card sown to the rough Kevlar of the waist of his uniform and stood quietly as the cell opened before him. As the door clicked open, he stepped in with the same wariness he had carried with him the handful of times he had passed through that opening.

"Wher—uh... where should we start?"

"Wherever you choose."

Her body fell gently onto the mattress of the plain white cot, and she looked back up with eyes that reflected only pale green light. The Young Guard stepped forward with eyes moving constantly and fingers following similarly, closing the distance between the only active bodies in the corridor of jail cells.

"First," she whispered, "I want you to do something."

"Anything."

Red stood gingerly and delicately leaned over his shoulder, placing her lips hairs away from his ear.

"I want you to tell me you love me."

"Wha—uh... I don't... I don't know..."

"Tell me you love me," she pleaded.

"I-I...uh... love you."

"Again."

He swallowed deeply.

"I love you."

As the last syllable left his throat, the end of a ballpoint pen entered.

"_**GLRR**_—"

The mixed cry of shock and pain being quickly drowned out by the gargling of blood bubbling in thin air, frantic fingers immediately flew to his throat and reluctantly tugged at the plastic rod protruding from his neck. The hands jerked away and both crumpled to the floor from the sudden ripping sensation.

"Again."

His eyes widened in bewilderment as she leaned over him and held a hand on the slick bloody skin of his cheek.

"Tell me you love me."

Lips struggled frantically to pull out of the grimace that pulled them tightly against his face.

"Tell me you love me!" she repeated in a hushed shout.

"—_grl__grl-g__**lurv**_—"

Her roundhouse connected with the side of his face and spun his head with a sharp crack to the right.

Dead before he hit the floor.

She sighed deeply and stared at the messy scene for a full minute, particularly eyeing the borrowed pen that had been her weapon, before reaching down to the corpse and pulling off the electronic card from the pants.

"Liar..."

B r e a k i n g O u t

The contact of his shoulders on the glass wall before his head was a lucky break; unfortunately, the mass of the rest of the body followed soon after and did nothing to ease the crash.

A weak cough escaped as Gray slammed onto the concrete floor, and limped up to a defensive kneel. Behind disheveled black hair, he spotted the red glow emanating before him light up the darkness like a neon gallows.

"Want to try that again?" the hulking Android challenged

"Gladly."

Gray leaped up madly and twisted in anticipation of the fist that predictably shot up to stop him mid-air; gripping it with both hands, he slipped down and around the metallic hip and thrust Cy face first toward the back wall.

A simultaneous robotic kick, however, sent him flying back into the same spot on the clear barrier.

"'Ey!"

Dancing beams flashed across the glass as the Warden approached with a guard beside him.

"What's going on in there?"

Looking up at the Warden as he approached, Gray spit out blood onto the floor and managed a slight moue. "Nothing to worry about," he reassured. "Just getting killed."

"Open the door, now!"

The light barely lit green before the Warden was forcing his way into the cell, training a sparking blue contraption in one hand and a rifle in the other at the Android as the other guard moved forward and aimed a gun at the lying Boy.

"Now, what the hell is going—"

He turned to see the Boy already up and eying both men stone-faced.

The guard before Gray squeezed the trigger finger instinctively...

"GAAAGH!"

...and the Warden flinched down toward the hole in his bleeding foot.

Still aiming the barrel of the guard's gun toward the injured Warden, Gray stood and pulled it away in one motion, twisted it behind his back, and smashed the butt into the face of the guard.

"Motherfu—Sonuva—GAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

All of a sudden, he remembered the electronic device he had dropped during the shooting and made to move toward its position on the floor... but found himself held up by the neck by a metallic grip.

"You can't!" he gasped behind the vise-like hold. "You were reprogrammed, you can't injure humans! You can't _hurt_ me!"

"I don't have to," Cy answered, with cold certainty.

The Warden turned to see a boot block his vision and smash into his face, crumpling him to the floor and leaving him absolutely still like a torn ragdoll.

Labored breathing.

The only noise in the cell as two pairs of eyes glared at each other through the darkness.

"You could've tried only pretending to fight back."

"I was," Cy answered with could have been mistaken for a robotic laugh.

"Could've fooled me," Gray responded between quick breaths.

Inhaling deeply once more, he straightened back up and met eyes again with the Android.

"I still don't understand why you couldn't have just gotten Red to break into the hall," Cy muttered.

"Do you know how hated the people on _this row_ are? Do you know how many people would love nothing more than to get in and get a piece of revenge? It's a helluva lot harder to break **in** to this godforsaken place than to break **out** of it." He paused momentarily. "No, she has the pen I gave her. Now, follow me."

They turned together and left the cell.

B r e a k i n g I c e

Like the petals of a horribly bloody flower, they were stretched out radially away from them: feet pointing toward them, and blank eyes, twitching tongues, and bloody noses, eyes, and ears pointing away. It was art with dying bodies.

"They couldn't..." Her head flopped quizzically to the side as she traced the rivulets of red ruin back to their respective bodies. "They couldn't play."

"Don't worry," Red offered impatiently, "I'm sure they really wanted to."

As the Freak clumsily stood, glowing eyes stayed rigidly fixed on the morbidly graceful pattern spread around them and she slowly twisted a strand of greasy purple hair. Back and forth, up and down the lengths of the three lightly-armored, spasming guards and three groaning men in labcoats, her gaze trailed longingly, studying their miserable twists and painful jerks. If there was any emotion in her body, there wasn't a sliver of evidence of it on the outside.

"Did you hear what I said?"

She silently turned to face her benefactor.

"We need to go."

Careful to weave around the arrangement of psychic moans emanating around her, Roth followed the trail of red hair out a pair of double doors and into a room containing only steel. A metal detector, computer monitors, and clean white papers lay scattered along the floor, and narrow, steel-reinforced walls did little to dampen their footsteps as both prisoners went along their way.

"How'd you do it?"

She continued along at a quick pace and rounded a corner before asking again; the Freak stared straight ahead at an infinitely distant point as she silently continued alongside her.

"Wait."

A sharp inhale interrupted their breathing as they simultaneously stopped beside the edge of a wall. Red flattened herself and held out an outward palm to signal Roth to do the same.

Silent seconds trickled by.

In the hallway beside their wall, shadows waxed, waned, and shifted like living mountains across the cheap white linoleum. Venturing the most unnoticeably small glance, a green iris peered out from the corner and down the main walkway.

Empty.

"They're gone." The Girl turned back to the catatonic captive beside her and nodded. "Let's go."

"I played with them."

She hesitated and kept her eyes on the ones staring back at her behind strands of dirty hair.

"I played with their minds. And they broke. I didn't know they were real! They didn't know I was real!" Roth leaned into her and held her face forward, talking almost directly into her stomach. "If they didn't have dirty water, I wouldn't have to clean! Wouldn't have to use clean hands! Wouldn't have to CONSUM—"

"Shut. Up." Her attention shot up to the face of her addresser. "I am not going to get caught because you can't control yourself. So keep your damn mouth closed and follow me or our only chance will be blown." She moved to cross the hallway intersection… but paused and turned around once more. "And if you ever come that close to touching any part of me again, I will play with you in ways you've never even had nightmares about."

Burning fury in her eyes was met by stoic violet ones.

Suddenly, the freakish face erupted into an insane grin, eyes maddeningly wide, and teeth clenched like a hungry jackal.

"I like you," she whispered in a calm giggle, "I like you a lot."

Red dropped two tightened fists to her side and rigidly turned around toward the escape route.

"Like some kind of homicidal puppy…"

Seven minutes and forty-two seconds later, they were standing in the shadowed auxiliary hallway within seeing distance a heavily guarded door.

"I trust there were no complications."

"Tore the thyroid cartilage, nailed the trachea… probably pierced the esophagus, too. But none unless you consider our insane acquaintance a complication," she answered. Turning away from the distant target, her eyes settled on the fresh bruises on the arms and legs of the prisoner before her. "I guess things didn't go as smoothly for you…"

"No," Gray answered dispassionately, "everything is according to plan."

A short distance away, the Freak was peaceably kneeled, eyes locked on the blank gray expanse of the wall, fingers meekly raised in the direction of the barrier, and lips twitching into the echoes of words. Slowly, her hands moved closer to the wall until they hovered right above the surface and skimmed over in nigh-imperceptible circles. Her tongue rolled out consistently thicker and thicker consonants until she was left murmuring seductively to the barrier in plain tongue.

"…di**rty**WATE_Rdir_tyw**at**e_rDI_R**T**Ywa**te**rdi_rtyw__**a**_**te**rdiRT**Y**W_**A**_t_er_dirTY**Wate**rdIRt_ywa_**tE**R…"

Cy stepped out from beside Gray and leaned in to the inmates beside him.

"What is she doing?"

"Don't worry," she replied, barely containing her voice behind a giddy smile, "I have clean hands!"

And with that, she pulled them back and barely tapped the wall with her palms.

Deep waves rippled immediately and moved out along the wall, seemingly bending the steel of the walls, the concrete reinforcement, and the very air around it.

She rose to her feet and stepped back to admire the scene.

"My angel!"

A snout protruded from the gelatinous material of the wall and stole a tentative sniff of the atmosphere before sinking back into the wall…

And emerging seconds later in the form of large green monster.

"That's her angel?" Cy asked stolidly.

The Beast stood on all fours with thick, claw-like fingers resting solidly on the ground; a large, three-horned crest adorned its brow, and narrowed over deeply set, narrow eyes; flattened spines ran along the scaly spine from the broad shoulders to the tip of the tail. A gray underbelly lay well hidden beneath the bulk of muscle that stretched over the arms, feet, and back.

He turned to the side and managed as much of a look of confusion as a robotic face could manage. "What kind of allies did you choose?"

"Since then, at an uncertain hour, that agony returns," she chanted with a smile and ran a hand along the Beast's back, "and till my ghostly tale is told, this heart within me burns!"

"And she's reciting poetry?"

"Rena."

She turned curiously. "REEnuh. You know my name?"

"Of course," Gray answered. "Rena Roth. Rena the Terrible."

"Oh…" With a deep yawn, she closed her eyes, laid herself atop the hulking beast's back… "Follow Dorothy and his friends." …and went comatose.

Red turned away from the scene and shook her head slowly. "All that even with the collar on…"

"Let's get moving," Gray interrupted, "there are still a few more stops along the way."

B r e a k i n g E v e n

"She's not responding well."

Silence.

"She's not responding at all." He paused slightly. "Insane..."

"No... No, she's still in there. She knows everything that's going on."

Papers shuffled on clipboards as the two men continued murmuring among themselves, the drone of the ancient air conditioning and the mad bubble of the brewing coffee were their only accompaniment.

The first man nodded. "It's only a matter of time before they find a reason to take her out."

"I hope they do. Soon."

A bitter aroma emanated from the coffee pot as it poured out its contents into the other man's mug; apparently ignorant of it, he sighed and took a swig of the coffee, simultaneously grimacing and fighting down the gulp.

"You know they can't chart her?"

"That's private information." Through the threshold of the only door in the break room walked in a wiry ground with a gruff growl and fatigue hanging from his eyelids. "I'd expect that two men of your clearance would know that."

He slowed down by the coffee machine and leaned over for a quick whiff… before shaking head and continuing around the center table. "It would be a shame if such a breach of information would cost you your jobs," the Wiry Man added.

Both scientists looked at each other hurriedly…

"We should probably—"

"—Yes, with the—"

"—involved with a—"

"—immediately—"

…and shuffled away amidst mutters and avoiding glances.

"Huh, dumbasses."

He leaned lightly against the wall and glanced at the fridge, managing a single step in that direction before small specks of debris hit his right shoulder; eyes shifted upward in time to catch a glance of steel grating catch him in the face.

"God—"

Black boots touched down as he stumbled back, hands clutching his face, red already beginning to creep out from between the fingers. Pain exploded at his side as a swift kick caught him beneath the ribs and dropped him like a steel drum.

"You okay?"

A brief glance up revealed the collective group of fugitives lounging casually around: the Boy and the Girl planted angrily in front; the Android looming hulkingly in the back, arms crossed against a cracked wall; and the Freak laying draped across a snorting impatient creature; The Beast.

"How can you be so stupid?" he coughed out, curling his lips into a sneer and struggling to catch his breath. "All it takes is a press of this button and—"

"_This_ button?" His smile quickly dropped flat and slowly changed to a mask of horror as he attempted to discreetly pat himself down.

Red grinned savagely. "Sweetie, I could pull your wedding ring, your right pink nail, and your back molars off of you without letting you realize it. And, apparently," she added, holding an arm out, "the keys to the evidence room."

They mockingly dangled just out of reach, swinging back and forth rhythmically and tempting one last, desperate lunge from the fidgeting Wiry Man. The corner of his black uniform boots moved a fraction of an inch to the side as he inconspicuously bent both knees…

"Not now."

And an empty coffeepot smashed against his face, knocked his head back into the wall, and left him crumpled on the floor like a ragdoll. Cy held it up and examined the large crack that had emerged on it.

"Have any of gotten a whiff of this? It smells like raw ass."

"And here's my part of the deal." The gloved hand was motionlessly outstretched toward the rest of the group. Gray nodded toward the squat, glowing metallic device resembling an electric razor that sat in his palm. "Here's what you want."

Red felt the edges of the collar on her neck and gave a quick tug against the tightness of the restraint. She sighed sharply and caught the attention of the other fugitives in the room.

"Then what are we waiting for?"

B r e a k i n g N e w s

Sweat glistened on an empty patch of skin. It slowly gathered into a small reflective droplet and trailed down the nosebridge to the weathered tip of the nose. Hanging hesitantly, it bottomed out and fell away, splattering noiselessly onto the floor.

"You won't make it out of here in one piece―"

"―Did you hear me talk to you?"

"..."

"So don't talk unless I tell you to. Let me remind you that you are greatly outnumbered, Old Man, outnumbered by people that are more than eager to tear you a new one at the slightest provoking. So in your position, I would shut up and listen very attentively." Gray crossed his arms and stared down at the snarling senior warden kneeling before his large mahogany desk, hands positioned testily atop his head.

Outside, the young secretary lay unconsciously slumped over the keyboard, two very disabled security officers strewn at her feet.

"Fortunately for you, I won't be wasting my time revealing some master plan. All I'll be saying is this..." He leaned in abruptly and let his breath fall on the Old Man's face. "You've run your course. You've used and abused your power and now you're done. You're surrounded by very, _very_ angry people who know where to find you at any given moment of your life. I suggest you start sleeping with one eye open."

Gray stepped back and walked to Cy before turning back with a small, black handgun outstretched.

"I said you would kiss my gun before I killed you."

"Oh, remember that promise to kiss my gun before I blow you away?"

A click echoed as the handgun cocked.

"It was just a joke..."

A flick of the wrist and the Old Man just barely caught sight of the green claws descending on him.

**WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPP.**

"Security alarm. Looks like she squealed," Cy declared, seemingly to the flashing red light that lit up the small break room. "Could have told you this was going to happen."

"Oh, no! Whatever shall we do?" Rena, recently awoken and rubbing her eyes, added in disturbingly high-pitched voice.

**WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPP.**

The deep rumbling arose as a seeming answer; rubber-soled boots beat rhythmically on the progressively closer hallway tile as the limitations of the enclosed office suddenly became apparent to the five escapees.

Addressing everyone else in the room, Gray locked eyes and calmly took a place beside the line facing the only exit to the room. "Time to earn your keep..."

The first group of four armed enforcers arrived beside the double doors of the office and paused warily. The rest of the emergency personnel ran toward them, but remained valuable seconds behind. Giving a simply signal, the leader motioned for the other three to provide cover behind him as he went in first. They merely nodded and watched his fingers slowly raise. One... Two... Three. They spun outward and moved into the tactical rush.

...And they were met seconds later, by a large wooden desk that carried them out and crashing against the opposite hallway wall in a hail of oak splinters.

The arriving rest of the response unit merely slowed to a dead stop at the sight of the badly ended charge.

"GRAAAAALLLLLLLLLGGGGGGGGGG!"

The sudden primal mixture of growl and yell startled the armed guards long enough to allow the scaled dinosaur-like monstrosity to leap from out of the office and spring out to the unprepared team. From his trail emerged Red, eyes and fists ablaze with an amber fire; around her quickly appeared the remaining members, and without hesitation reached out to make way through the rapidly reacting attack guards.

Cy caught the first wave of live ammunition across the chest, and swung a long filing cabinet that had traveled with him in a large arc, catching a row of guns and several broken arms in the process.

Closing both fists and clenching her jaw, Rena crushed weapons into small spheres and blew aside the more dumbstruck members of the assault team.

Gray danced past flailing limbs and delivered the occasional fist to the gut as he made his way speedily through the gathering mass. Briefly delaying, he glanced back and yelled out final instructions.

"Only enough to clear the way. Make way to the exit."

Spinning around, he backfisted into an exposed nose and ducked back into the fray.

B r e a k i n g C l e a n

Flirting in and out of consciousness, leaning against the bare wall of the prison cell, feeling the cold lick a wound on her shoulder, she gathered the last of the recent shouts in her cell.

"_You really shouldn't have done that."_

_**WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPP.**_

A sharp wind raked across the exposed parts of her body.

"_..no use for a traitor..."_

"_...we never really needed you..."_

_**WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPP.**_

"_...an experiment..."_

"_...a decoy..."_

"_...a toy..."_

An overturned metal cot and a broken urinal.

"_...Next time maybe you won't try..."_

_**WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPP.**_

A busted lip.

"_...you know how we punish betrayal..."_

Cuts on the forearm, and bruises on the cheeks, chin, and eyes.

"_Clean yourself up..."_

The signs of a quick but decisive struggle.

"_...Better luck next time..."_

**WOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo...**

The strong breeze continued pouring in through the enormous gaping hole in the back wall of her cell, overwhelming senses past the point of numbness, and blowing the tatters of the torn prison jumpsuit. As her breaths became increasingly shallow, her eyes settled beyond the confines of the prison walls, past the broken glass of the searchlight on a guard tower, over the cracked wall of the prison, to a shadowed hill in the black tar nighttime.

"Damn you, Gray..." Gaea swallowed weakly and closed her eyes.

In the far distance, five figures stood atop the dark hill, spaced out on the ledge that overlooked a phantasmagoria of sleazy neon signs, frantic headlights, and semi-functional streetlights.

The Girl's legs dangled over the precipice as she stared out into the nighttime with ecstatic lust in her eyes.

The Android stood to the right with a glowing red smirk as his right hand morphed from a drill to a blade to a hand to a cannon.

The Freak sat kneeled to the left, laughing tears with the howling wind.

The Beast laid at her knees in feral feline form, eyes closed but claws gently stretched, all the while purring softly.

In the middle of the triangle, stood the Boy, silent and motionless above the sprawling land before him.

After several long moments, he too, joined with a smile and a quiet whisper.

"The city is ours."

**A l l** H e l l** B r e a k i n g** L o o s e

END


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